This isn’t just about a train.

Alto’s high-speed rail is coming through our region. But this email isn’t really about the train.

It’s about whether you get to find out what’s happening to your own land before it’s already decided.

Some of the municipalities next to us looked at Alto’s non-disclosure agreement and refused to sign it. They wouldn’t sign away their residents’ right to find out which farms and properties are on the table for expropriation.

Ottawa signed it.

The city’s head of planning put pen to paper on an NDA covering the detailed mapping and route options Alto is working from, the same maps that would show which rural properties, farms, and homes are in the corridor.

Sutcliffe defended it. Said it’s normal. Said it’s really just about city-owned land.

Here’s the problem with that: the NDA covers route and mapping data, not just city property. That’s the information that would show whose farm, whose home, whose driveway ends up in the corridor. “Just city-owned land” doesn’t match what the agreement actually covers.

And residents didn’t get answers because the mayor volunteered them. Council had to step in and pass its own motion demanding more transparency from Alto, because the mayor’s approach wasn’t getting it done on its own.

That’s the mayor’s default: sign quietly, explain later if someone forces the issue.

Meanwhile, Sutcliffe spent his energy on something else entirely: lobbying for a downtown train station. The Board of Trade, Ottawa Tourism, and Invest Ottawa, a coalition that calls itself Ottawa Unlimited, sent Alto’s CEO a letter backing it, without ever bringing it to council first. Alto turned it down flat. They knew it would destroy the neighbourhood.

Energy spent chasing a downtown station that got rejected anyway. Silence kept on the route that could take someone’s farm.

Rural Ottawa isn’t a line on a route map. It’s generations of family farms and livelihoods that don’t come back once a rail corridor cuts through them.

If your land might be on that list, you deserve to know. Not eventually. Now.

As mayor, I wouldn’t sign an NDA that keeps you in the dark about your own property. If your government is talking about it, you deserve to know.

If you live in rural Ottawa and you’re wondering whether your name’s on that list, hit reply and tell me.

I need your help to get the word out too.

If you can, chip in and help us reach more people who deserve a straight answer: Donate

If you’ve got time instead of dollars, sign up. We need doors knocked, signs put up, and neighbours talked to.

Either way, we need you.

We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Ottawa deserves better.

Alex